Alex Goodall
Camelot’s Last Chapter
JFK’s Last Hundred Days: An Intimate Portrait of a Great President
By Thurston Clarke
Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 432pp £20 order from our bookshop
To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace
By Jeffrey D Sachs
The Bodley Head 249pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
John F Kennedy, who was assassinated fifty years ago this November, remains the great mythic hero for the postwar American Left. Lyndon Baines Johnson’s contributions to civil rights and the war on poverty were blighted by the Vietnam War; Jimmy Carter failed even to secure re-election; Bill Clinton’s presidency was undermined by a small-c conservatism and an all-too-unpresidential private life. Kennedy’s repu-tation, however, remains untarnished by either time or evidence, petrified in amber by the tragedy of his untimely death. Although Obama’s presidential campaigning has been most consciously Lincolnian in its language and symbolism, it is against Kennedy that he has most consistently been measured, not least because they are two of the most powerful orators to have occupied the White House in recent years.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Last Tweets